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Posted by: zenon 19th June 2015, 10:03 PM

When Radio 1 moves the top 40 to Fridays as of next month, the shorter slot that will go with it will mean they will only have time to play a select number of entries in the lower bracket alongside the full top 20 but which method do you prefer? I think the concept of playing all forty entries is now old hat considering the impact of streaming has seen several long runners in the lower end although it did work back in the 90s and early 2000s when you would regularly get 15-20 new entries.

Posted by: JosephStyles 19th June 2015, 10:05 PM

Currently I prefer the idea of playing all the tracks, especially as some songs grow on me over time and I won't otherwise hear them outside of the chart. However, as streaming becomes more and more dominant, the chart will be staler and there really won't be much of a point playing the entire top 40 so in time I'll prefer the latter. Right now though, I like the idea of playing all 40 songs.

Posted by: 'Dan 19th June 2015, 10:06 PM

Skipping entries definitely. There's so much deadwood in the chart right now which makes the chart less interesting to listen to. Glad it's being reduced to 2 hours, that should be good.

Posted by: Mart!n 19th June 2015, 10:26 PM

There won't be much time to play a top 40 anyway, and the show is less than 2 hours, with newsbeat slotted at 5:45pm

Posted by: rob_s 19th June 2015, 10:34 PM

It'll be option 2 because of the time anyway but I'd also favour playing the top 20 with Greg going through all the 40-21 positions first with only playing the new entries/any re entries and songs climbing to new peaks or climbing with less than 10/5 weeks top 40. Which is probably what will happen anyway so option 2!

Used to like them playing the entire top 40 for so many years but it's a chore to listen to nowadays with all the staleness!

Posted by: Dobbo 19th June 2015, 10:36 PM

Playing all 40, don't like the fact the Chart will be shortened by an hour.

Posted by: steve201 20th June 2015, 08:49 AM

We all know there will be a week soon enough where Britney or the like peak at 28 or something and radio 1 don't play it and instead play TOL again instead because they playlisted the later and BJ will go nuts!!

Posted by: Dobbo 20th June 2015, 10:38 AM

Also, people mentioning the lower bracket is stale nowadays well actually that's where most of the new entries tend to initially chart these days, both ones that peak there (like Geronimo) & the eventual climbers (Cheerleader).

If anything, the top half will be the stale bracket from now on with the likes of Cheerleader & Lean On looking set to camp there for eternity - luckily in this case they are both good tracks but it won't be long before we get another Stay With Me.

Posted by: AcerBen 20th June 2015, 10:46 AM

The way the chart is now, listening to the full 40 every week is just too tedious. I can't put myself through it every week. I listen once a month max. I'm glad they're changing the show.

I would like to see them play all new entries and climbers outside the top 20. I know they've said they want to play the full top 20 as well, but I think with the 1hr45 time slot, occasionally they might have to skip one or two tracks lower down that they would have usually played so that they can fit in the full top 20. I'd rather they cut down or skipped one or two in the top 20 to accommodate.

It'd also be good that in really quiet weeks they played a new entry or two from outside the top 40. For instance for last week's chart, I would have played:

56 The Weeknd
51 Leona Lewis
34 Ed Sheeran
30 Rudimental
24 Ariana Grande
21 Rixton
+ full top 20

Posted by: AcerBen 20th June 2015, 10:50 AM

Mmm if they were truly going to make the show sound as fresh as possible, they wouldn't focus on the top 20 but maybe just play the songs that had been on the chart for the least time. So for example last week they would have played Florence, even though she was down at 39, but then skipped Uptown Funk at 19 because it's so old. But I think most people would prefer they played the top 20 in full so I can understand the decision. Given that they've managed to squeeze the top 20 into 1hr20 before, I expect they will have enough time left over to play most of the new entries and climbers 21-40...

Unless they're going to change the format to make it more chatty again. Do they also have to do any news or travel bulletins? I don't listen to daytime R1 very much. There will be a lot of anger on here if they JUST play the top 20!

Posted by: donnahjaneymack 20th June 2015, 11:11 AM

I agree.

For most of the 90s (from about late 1991 when the number of new entries to the chart seemed to suddenly skyrocket, definitely 1992) until about mid 2000s, you'd get a huge amount of new entries into the chart, and often those between 21-40 would only spend a single week in the chart (two if it were lucky), so it was important for the full top 40 to be played so that you'd hear these songs in the bottom half of the chart that were almost certain to be gone the following week. The chart was just so fast-moving in those days that the full 40 had to be played. But nowadays, with the amount of long runners in the chart, I think they should just stick to the top 20, and then climbers/new entries and songs reaching a new peak in the 21-40 category. I like the idea also of including songs outside the 40 as AcerBen said, such as Leona at 51 for example.

Posted by: AcerBen 20th June 2015, 11:23 AM

It'd be nice if they made a rule to play all new entries in the top 60. I expect what will actually happen is we'll get a maximum of 3 songs played in 21-40, and skipping any new entries that aren't R1 friendly!

Posted by: JosephStyles 20th June 2015, 11:39 AM

I'd be surprised if they skip non-Radio 1 friendly new entries actually. They don't pick and choose what to play on the chart update and instead play all new entries, or if there's not enough time to play them all, they'll snub the lowest ones which is the fairest way. I really can't see them snubbing a new entry from, say, Leona Lewis, just because she's not supported by Radio 1.

Posted by: Stewie 21st June 2015, 12:49 PM

Highlights (40-21) and full Top 20.

Posted by: Chez Wombat 21st June 2015, 01:07 PM

Back when they used to skip records, it used to annoy me as it was kinda biased to their playlist and they used to skip (and play) the same songs every week. So I enjoyed that they played the whole top 40, BUT now with on average 3-4 new entries a week, most of which dropping out instantly and others going to spend weeks and weeks in the chart, I think skipping the odd record that's been around for a millennium is for the best and this new format fits quite well, just as long as they play ALL the new entries and not skip ones that they haven't been supporting. It'd be even better if they played some sales-only top 40 hits but I doubt they'd have time.

Posted by: zenon 21st June 2015, 08:40 PM

Out of this week's chart, this is what would likely be played in the 21-40 bracket under the new format.

(22) Ed Sheeran - Photograph (new peak)
(29) Rudimental - Never Let You Go (new peak)
(34) The Weeknd - Can't Feel My Face (New Entry)
(38) Kygo - Stole The Show (New Entry)
(39) Flo Rida feat. Sage The Gemini - GDFR (Re-entry)